Pope Francis to launch Jubilee Year in Rome on Christmas Eve
Holy Year ceremony to take place at St Peter's.
Pope Francis will inaugurate the Vatican's Jubilee Year 2025 by opening the Holy Door at St Peter's Basilica on Tuesday, Christmas Eve, at 19.00 Rome time.
The solemn event, followed by Christmas Eve Mass inside the papal basilica, will be broadcast live by Vatican News and Vatican Radio, via YouTube and Facebook Live.
Those in Rome who wish to watch the opening of the Holy Door on giant screens in St Peter's Square are required to register for the event via the official Jubilee website.
The Holy Door will remain open throughout the Jubilee Year, allowing the more than 32 million pilgrims and tourists expected to arrive in Rome next year to pass through.
In addition to St Peter's, the pope will mark the Jubilee by opening the Holy Doors at the other papal basilicas of San Giovanni in Laterano on 29 December, Santa Maria Maggiore on 1 January and St Paul's Outside the Walls on 5 January.
What is the Jubilee Year?
Vatican jubilees are designed as a "special year of grace, in which the Church offers the faithful the possibility of obtaining a plenary indulgence", according to Vatican News.
Faithful who pass through the Holy Door can obtain a plenary indulgence, a grace granted by the Catholic Church, defined as "a remission before God of the temporal punishment due to sins whose guilt has already been forgiven".
Vatican jubilees take place every 25 years, in a tradition dating back to 1300 when Pope Boniface VIII proclaimed the first jubilee.
There was an "extraordinary" Holy Year of Mercy in 2015, at the surprise behest of Pope Francis, while the last ordinary jubilee was in the millennium year of 2000 when around 25 million pilgrims and tourists thronged the capital.
Traditionally the Jubilee begins just before Christmas and ends on the Epiphany of the following year, with the doors remaining open until the end of the holy year.
Rome and Jubilee Year
Over the past year the Italian capital has resembled an open-air building site as the capital carried out a spate of major infrastructure projects ahead of the Jubilee, many of which have been completed in recent days.
The city also restored landmark historic fountains and updated its public transport network, with additional buses and new infrastucture for its trams and metro system, including the renovation of several key subway stations.
The biggest scheme - extending an underpass and pedestrianising Piazza Pia near the Vatican - was inaugurated on Monday by Rome mayor Roberto Gualtieri and Italian prime minister Giorgia Meloni who said that completing the project on time was a "little civil miracle".
Photo credit: Mo Wu / Shutterstock.com.
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